Murray has posted another great article on his MINI weblog describing the function of the General Module on the MINI.
>The General Module or as it is often referred to as the Body Control Module or BC-1. It is the module that manages a number of specific vehicle systems and is located behind the passenger kick panel just in front of the door.
>It has two primary K-bus connections, one to the Instrument cluster and one to a network bus. This body control module is a consolidation of a number of smaller system modules that control and monitor the following systems: drive-away protection, locking systems, rain-sensing wipers, sun roof, park distance control, mirror control, audio systems, navigations system, keyless entry, power windows, xenon headlamp control using the leveling sensors, run-flat warning system, all interior lighting, and the multi-function steering wheel. The control module also manages the anti-theft alarm systems if installed and the keyless entry system and its RF receiver.
Fair warning, this article is fairly technical but full of great information as always.
[ The General Module ] Murmini.com
He’s got some great technical articles on his blog, that do a good job (I think) of describing some of the more technical parts of the car to the layman. I’ve worked with each of these in the industry and they are accurate. These combined with some of the similarly good tech articles in MC2 means that the MINI population should be much better educated than others…but we knew that already. 🙂
When one of my drain tubes decided to come off during a hard rain and let all the water go into my MINI, the BCM started to freak out. I would close the bonnet and the hazards would turn on. Than, the windows would roll down and up, the roof open and close, and the wiper blades would go on and off. Suddenly, nothing worked so we towed Soulfire to the dealer and they replaced the roof liner, carpet, and BCM.